The Eureka Springs City Council liked what it heard regarding the recent designation change of the city’s hospital.
At its regular meeting on Monday, Jan. 22, the council heard from Kent Turner, chair of the hospital commission, regarding recent audit reports and the recent designation change from a Critical Access Hospital to a Rural Emergency Hospital.
“From my perspective as an accountant and from my perspective as chairman of the commission, the hospital is in good shape,” Turner told council members, adding that the news of the designation change comes at a good time as the hospital was struggling financially and its future was in doubt.
“At the end of the year, we have a little over $6 million,” Turner said. “And the reason we have a little over $6 million is as of last week, we were in fact granted approval of becoming a Rural Emergency Hospital. The state had already given us $2.4 million as part of that transaction. … There will be another $2.4 million coming once we get through the process and get everything approved.
“But, we are no longer a Critical Access Hospital. As of December 1, 2023, we are a Rural Emergency Hospital and we will be reworking our operations to come in compliance with the Rural Emergency Hospital. The reason for the $5 million was to allow us funds to, in fact, change things, change operations, change facilities to become a Rural Emergency Hospital.”
Council member Autumn Slane asked Turner other than no longer offering inpatient services, what differences the designation change will mean.
“The biggest thing is, it gives us funding to make sure that we’re equipped to handle emergencies,” Turner said. “The hospital has gone from a hospital to what’s really a big emergency room so that we can handle all kinds of emergencies.”
Turner explained that in the new format patients can be kept for 24 hours, sometimes longer, for observation, but then a patient would have to be transported to a hospital classified Level One or Level Two for further treatment.
“We have agreements with Mercy in Springfield and with Cox in Springfield,” Turner said, adding that a deal with Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville is still in the works.
Other large hospitals in Northwest Arkansas — Mercy in Rogers and Northwest Medical Center in Springdale and Bentonville — don’t qualify as transfer locations because they are Class Three-designated, Turner said.
The new designation will allow the hospital to possibly add supplemental health care.
“We’re looking at cardiac, we’re looking at prenatal, we’re looking at mental health,” Turner said. “We badly need mental health facilities in the area.… Our physical therapy unit is out off Passion Play Road. We’re very quickly going to … bring PT into the hospital so that we don’t have to pay for a separate facility.
“We want to look at the clinics that we can provide additional services to the community … that the community believes we need.”
Turner told council members that feedback from the community has been mostly positive regarding the new designation.
“The biggest complaint I will tell you that we’ve gotten is because we no longer have inpatient,” he said. “But I will be honest with you, we go for months without having an inpatient. And to be staffed to take care of inpatient and not having patients that you don’t get paid for from insurance is something that we just couldn’t continue to live with. We were staffed up for inpatient.
“That staff will be either be be reallocated or through attrition will go away.”
Council member David Avanzino told Turner he was excited about the possibility of adding mental health services to the hospital and said he would like to see the facility also one day offer services for “specific health concerns for our LGBTQ community.”
“More specifically, our trans community that have very specific medical needs,” Avanzino said. “… Our gay and lesbian population access to prep to help control HIV. So, that’s something I would just like to see … under this new rural hospital agreement. It’s certainly something I think that we need.”
Turner responded: “Yeah, I don’t disagree. We can literally, from a clinic standpoint, we can literally do anything we find a need for.”
The conversation regarding the new designation came after Turner shared recent audit reports from 2021 and 2022.
“You’ll see that in both ’22 and ’21 we had net losses,” he told council members, adding that the hospital was losing “about a quarter of a million dollars a month.”
The hiring of a fulltime chief financial officer has been a positive move as hospital commissioners now have a better grasp of budgetary issues, Turner assured the council.
OTHER COUNCIL ACTION
In other council action, a unanimous vote passed the second reading, by title only, of a proposed ordinance revising trash collections in the city — with one amendment.
The proposed ordinance now reads that trash service will allow residents to use one bag, up to 35 gallons, or a trash can up to 35 gallons. Anything more than that placed on the curb will need to be tagged. Tags can be purchased at city hall or another designated location for $2, according to the amendment.
Council member Harry Meyer suggested the one-bag limit after hearing from constituents and Mayor Butch Berry suggested changing the extra-bag tag fee from $1.75 to $2 because of city hall not always having quarters available for change. Any extra bags not tagged will be left behind, the proposed ordinance reads.
“I was just trying to make it easier for the guys picking up the trash …,” Meyer said. “I mean, we’ve got trash bags that are 15 gallon, 20 gallon, 25 gallon, whatever. For them to assess how many gallons of trash is put out there and how many bags to leave behind might be a little difficult.”
The council also approved a resolution approving the 2024 budget.
The budget includes estimated general fund revenues of $6,007,625 and general fund expenditures of $5,616,191.
“I think the finance director [Michael Akins] has made it easier for us to understand the budget since he’s been here,” Meyer said. “He deserves compliments for that. At least we can see bank balances now. We can see all sorts of things that we never saw before. Yeah, I appreciate that.”
Other approvals were a resolution designating Berry the authority to “execute certain documents in connection with funding administered by the Arkansas Natural Resource Commission.”
The funding the city will request will be for the repairs needed at the city’s sewer treatment facility, a project estimated to cost approximately $6 million.
“This is a first step in trying to find funding for our sewer plant,” Berry said.
The council also approved reappointing LB Wilson and David Danvers to continue their service on the Cemetery Commission.
In a short budget workshop before the meeting, Akins gave updates on recent tax collections, including a record amount from October that the city collected in December.
“What was collected in October, remitted to the state in November and sent to us in December was $413,582.28,” Akins said. “That’s the most we have ever collected in a month for sales tax.”
